


A Basis for Comparison

by Curlsandcollege



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Annette doesn't care about that, Established Relationship, F/M, Felix's apparent personality change, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Glenn Fraldarius, Rodrigue Fraldarius' A+ parenting, grief is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curlsandcollege/pseuds/Curlsandcollege
Summary: Annette realizes the specter of Glenn looms larger for Felix at home. She tries to be supportive of Felix despite the mystery of the dead brother he never mentions, the man who apparently Felix resembled more than he resembled his younger self. She didn’t care about any that.Annette didn’t know Felix before, she knew him now.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	A Basis for Comparison

**Author's Note:**

> My counselor brain wants to note that grief is really complicated.

If Annette had a dollar for every time Felix’s father mentioned Glenn, she would be able to afford a hotel room where they could escape this whole affair. 

Felix did not offer up personal details easily. Nearly everything she knew about his childhood or upbringing came from his friends. She knew the basics, mom died when he was a baby, brother gone in a car accident when Felix was a freshman in high school. He didn’t like to dwell on it, and she appreciated his understanding that sometimes people didn’t need to unpack all their trauma to feel close or understood. He knew her dad walked out and thankfully had never asked her _why_ because he knew that wasn’t important. 

Felix was intent to leave the past in the past, so it wasn’t truly surprising that they dated nearly three months before she learned the name Glenn. 

She'd heard "Glenn" more times in the few hours they'd been in Rodrigue's house than in their entire year of dating.   
  
"Oh this was Glenn's favorite pizza place." "Felix, you look just like Glenn in that jacket." "You're a math teacher? Glenn loved math class growing up." 

Every time she heard the name she felt a little bit sick, knowing that it practically burned Felix from how he reacted. They were supposed to do another two nights here? Annette was five seconds away from giving Rodrigue a piece of her mind. Reminding him that he had two sons, and one was standing right in front of him. No wonder Felix hated him, she thought uncharitably, staring up at Felix’s ceiling. 

  
Before they’d made the drive out to his father’s place he tried to warn her, “It’s a shrine. It’s weird and uncomfortable and if you want to turn the car around and just leave it I am on board.”  
  
Shrine, she scoffed internally. She loved Felix, she truly did, but in his attempts to stop sentimentality he went so far in the other direction… He was remarkably opposed to nostalgia for someone who had the same three best friends from childhood.  
  
She was, at the time, sure it was an overstatement. Felix was being dramatic or looking to paint his father in the worst possible light. Rodrigue was allowed to grieve, and his grief was different from Felix’s. To Felix any picture of Glenn at all would probably constitute a shrine. It’s not like he kept anything of Glenn’s around but a battered old keychain with a dull metal spur that he spun in his fingers when he was anxious.  
  


He spun it rapidly as he unlocked the door to his father’s home. 

In the entryway there were two frames made to display school pictures over the years. Annette held in a little squeal as she saw little Felix grinning with two missing front teeth. She was ready to embarrass Felix with proclamations of his cuteness until her eyes scanned along the frame and noticed that the hair was a little off and the eyes were actually blue. Glenn then- Dimitri had once mentioned they looked a lot alike, he wasn’t kidding. Placed a little further along the wall Felix’s school pictures stopped in high school, the K-12 frame with three notable absences. 

Rodrigue met them in the foyer, “I’m glad your key still works Felix. Well, those were Glenn’s I think. I love thinking that they’re still being used. Annette, so lovely to see you again.” 

Felix shouldered his bag, biting out, “Of course I use them. You haven’t changed anything here in ten years, why would you change the locks?” 

Annette tried to cut into the silence, “Thank you very much for having us Mr Fraldarius.” 

He smiled warmly, “Rodrigue is fine Annette. I'm so glad you two are spending the Holiday with me. Felix I trust you remember where the guest room is?”  
  
Felix rolled his eyes, irritation rising, “Seriously old man?”  
  
“No, no it’s fine Felix, it’s his house.” Annette insisted. Felix’s dad was traditional then. Good to know for navigating the rest of the weekend. 

Rodrigue gave a small sympathetic smile, “No it’s fine, I’m afraid I’m not well versed in the rules here. Glenn dated in high school and I’m falling back on old routines. Felix has never actually brought a girlfriend home before.”  
  
“And you’re reminding me exactly why. Come on.” Felix grabbed for Annette’s hand and dragged her further into the house. He was in rare form for having exchanged only a few words with his father. They were supposed to spend the whole weekend together? 

Two minutes into their visit she realized that Rodrigue’s home was less of a place where a successful man resided and more a display designed to ensure everyone who entered understood that Glenn Fraldarius once lived there. 

  
There were fencing trophies, debate ribbons, pictures from cross country meets, a graduation cap and honors tassels. A framed admissions letter from Garreg Mach.  
  
All things Felix had done as well, now that Annette thought about it, but everything on the walls were tributes to Glenn’s greatness. There was nothing of Felix in the home, at least nothing of him not directly related to Glenn.  
  
Glenn died when Felix was a freshman in high school. When did these momentos go up? She had a sinking feeling it wasn’t recently.  
  
Felix had lived surrounded by all of this for _years_ . It was cloying this… worship. Annette’s mother had packed up her father’s belongings into the attic once it was clear he was really gone. And sure, there were many ways to grieve a loss but… Was this healthy? To turn one son into an idol and erase the other entirely?  
  
At least his bedroom was normal. Messy and cluttered with a childhood full of toys and books, a college notebook still open on the desk. She wanted to snoop through everything but knew it would be more fun with Felix actually there to give context. His taste in music was the same at least, given the posters on the wall. 

Felix returned from the ensuite bathroom dressed in loose sleep pants holding a brush and a hair tie.  
  
“I’m sorry we’re back in a full.” He nodded towards his bed. 

  
She grinned, “It’ll be harder for you to steal the blanket if we’re forcibly cuddled together. I have a twin at home so when you come meet my mom we might actually be sleeping in separate beds.”  
  
He rolled his eyes but joined her on the bed, comfortably close. He held out the tools “I’m basically tying knots in it every time my dad speaks, would you mind helping?”  
  
Felix played with his hair when he was stressed. He was always twisting his hair in odd directions, never really getting the concept of braiding down but doing some level of approximation that left everything matted and tangled.  
  
Annette was fairly certain that Felix was capable of getting his hair out of it himself. From what she knew it was long for years before they met, and it’s not like he walked around with tied into knots every day.   
  
She smiled and started brushing it through, using her fingers to unravel each knot. She’d never mention that she knew this was a thinly veiled excuse to have her play with his hair. She loved riling up Felix privately, but he could be defensive about the strangest things. Comfort was hard for him, she didn’t need to tinge this closeness with embarrassment.  
  
“You know we could have gotten into real trouble in this bed had we met earlier.” Annette joked, working through a knot.  
  
Felix let out a small huff of air, leaning back into her touch, “I was even more sullen, nobody could get three words out of me back then.”  
  
“What if I talked to you about fencing? I was adorable in high school, you wouldn’t talk to a cute girl who wanted to know about swords?” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, trying to imagine little surly Felix- he was the exact kind of boy she was terrified of at that age, she wouldn’t have been brave enough to approach. But he didn’t need to know that. They’d both grown since then.  
  
“I’d try talking for two minutes and then run away when I realized you were bored.”  
  
She could hear his eye roll, but soldiered on in her little fantasy, “I wouldn’t be bored if it were you.”  
  
“You didn’t know me.” Felix crossed his arms but didn’t pull away from her work on his hair. 

Annette took a risk and started rubbing her thumbs in little circles at the base of his skull, musing, “I kind of wish I did.” 

“I don’t.”  
  
Annette’s stomach soured and she dropped her hands, offended. What did he mean by that? Surely Felix couldn’t have been that bad. A little greasy and ungroomed, but that was high school boys in general. She would have been the same age, she wouldn’t have known the difference. Was it about him? Or her? She’d been nerdy, clumsy, loud, and easily offended, but it was mostly endearing or so she was told.  
  
“Why not?” Her voice raised just a little with frustration, still ever aware they weren’t truly alone in the house.  
  
Felix sighed and pulled away, laying on his side facing the wall. This was his home once, but this room was the only place that really belonged to him. He didn’t have anywhere to run so instead he pulled away, into himself.  
  
Annette tried to keep herself from panicking. What happened? What did she do? He was already in rough shape from being around his dad and she was just making things worse for him. Felix hated talking about difficult things and while he wasn’t one to dance around an issue with her he usually preferred dropping things completely. 

  
She put her fingers back in his hair, combing through and starting to place it into a loose braid.  
  
“Sorry.” She said quietly, hoping her small motions would bring them back to neutral. She was here for him, to help lessen the blow of his visit home. She shouldn’t be upsetting him. This wasn’t about her.  
  
Felix kept doing his armadillo impression facing towards the wall, but Annette could see the tips of his ears start to redden as he said, “You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything. I uh… I like that we met after.”  
  
_After_ hung in the air, needing no explanation. There was only one _after_ in Felix’s life, much as he denied it. Glenn’s death changed him. When his friends brought it up Felix didn’t deny that he was a very different child. Felix the happy grinning younger brother. Felix the tagalong. Felix the crybaby.  
  
His friends alleged that adult Felix was far more similar to Glenn in personality. That Glenn was actually the one who was a little mean and harsh and sarcastic, Felix was truly soft and gentle.  
  
Annette had no basis for comparison, just vague descriptions and anecdotes.  
  
Felix wasn’t an emulation of Glenn, he was his own person.  
  
She knew Felix the quiet, the intense, the sarcastic.  
  
Felix who was loyal and honest. She always knew where she stood with him, knew when he was angry or happy or embarrassed or annoyed.  
  
She didn’t know Felix in relation to who he was before, but she knew who he was now. And wasn’t that all that mattered? Seeing Felix’s old school pictures felt the exact same as hearing a story of how he went crying to Sylvain in elementary school. Funny and cute but a lifetime ago. Entertaining in the hindsight of who he was now. But who he was now was exactly that, who he was. Felix was Felix.  
  
Annette cuddled around him, placing a kiss at the nape of his neck, “I like you now. I like who you are. I don’t care who you were before, you know?”  
  
Annette didn’t care who Felix was in relation to Glenn. In befores or afters.  
  
She cared who Felix was laying beside her, relaxing under her touch and finally turning to face her. Forehead to forehead, he kissed her gently before softening into silence. The moment stretched on gently, kissing with no urgency, touching softly. Purposeless, aimless touch that was comforting all the same.  
  
Felix pulled away for a moment, running his fingers along her jaw as he answered her,  
  
“I know. Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Smallest stupidest head cannon: Felix likes having his hair played with, but refuses to admit it.


End file.
